Shadow Man

The other reviewers have done a nice job on the good and bad of Ms. Scott's writing. All I can say is that, as a trans woman, this is one of perhaps two or three books which describes _my_ world, and the issues and concerns which define it. If you're trans, or know someone who is, or simply want a good framing...and you like and think in the tropes of speculative fiction...I cannot recommend this too highly. You may or may not agree with a few of the specifics of her worldbuilding, and it isn't a complete and literal extrapolation. But...read it.

At 18, Warreven was presented with an offer most men would have gladly accepted: Marriage to the only child of the Most Important Man on the planet Hara. The problem was, Warreven wasn't "most men." In fact, he wasn't a man at all, but a herm or, as Haran slang went, a "halving." And Temelathe's only child, Tendelathe, was a man. For the Most Important Man, Warreven's sex was a non-issue: Warreven would simply classify himself as a woman and become Tendelathe's wife. This was a common arrangement, as herms did not live their lives as herms, but as men or women. It was up to them to choose. Warren would not choose, however; while he would willingly have married his long-time friend, he refused to be forced into declaring himself female. He was comfortable living as a man and that's how he wanted it to stay. He refused the offer. The decision ultimately changed his life.The story point is one of the keystones in Melissa Scott's 1995 novel Shadow Man, a book which explores human gender and what life might be like if things were not as "simple" as we (perhaps wrongly) view them today. The planet Hara, where Warreven, the Most Important Man and his son live is one of countless human colonies founded at a point in the future when humans have mastered faster-than-light (FTL) travel and have spread across the galaxy. As the story opens, Hara is in the process of slowly but surely being re-connected with the colonial network, after a few hundred years' separation.The reason Hara was cut off is the same reason it's now so different from other human colonies. FTL travel, as boundary-breaking as it was, was in large part made possible by the development of specialized drugs, which prevented the side effects of the travel, keeping humans healthy and sane. However, these drugs themselves had a major side effect, one which no one had expected or even noticed under it was too late: The drugs affected human DNA and caused a large upswing (as high as 25%) in intersex births. There were no longer men and women, but men, women... and several other sexes. This discovery was so shocking and devastating to the human space colonization movement that all FTL travel was put on hold. Chaos erupted, arguments ensued, and it was during this time that the group making its way to the planet known as Hara were cut off. People on hara developed the same genetic"abnormalities" as the rest of those who had taken FTL drugs. Not only their children, but their children's children, and on down the line, were born into one of five gender categories: woman, fem, herm, men, or man. The crucial difference on Hara, as opposed to within the human colonization effort and humanity as a whole (the "Concord"), was that the people on Hara chose to deny that this change had occurred. Almost all Concord humans had finally embraced the sexual differences and all the new sexual orientations and identities that came with it. They "moved on " with the change and re-started FTL travel. Harans were diff

An intelligent social scifi-fantasy book, which does not forget action as well. The topic of gender is more earth-life adapted than U.Guin's book and the observations of transgender and intersex and gay problematics highly accurate.Best book I read last year. Absolutely recomended and I hope they reprint it!

I found the sexual/ social issues in this book very interesting. Nowadays there is very little SF I can handle- it all seems to be cookie-cutter adventure series. Shadow Man sets itself apart by looking at something I haven't seen before, namely the social issues facing humans who have been split into five sexes rather than two. My interest was also held by the society described in the book, which is an unusual mix of technology and a more primitive lifestyle. I admit that the plot wasn't the most exciting- it was basically a vehicle for the book's social issues. However, I found the issues discussed in the book more than enough to keep me reading to the end. I have since read two more by the same author, Trouble And Her Friends and Night Sky Mine, which are more traditional cyberpunk adventures. While they're OK (and are unusual in that their heroines and heroes are mostly gay), they don't center around the same kind of ideas that made me think while reading Shadow Man. It's definitely the most interesting of the three.

The ideas explored in this book, centering around gender identity and sexuality, never prevent the characters from being real people. Not for the fans of whiz-bang space opera, but a solidly written page turner, full of social and political intrigue. Once again, Melissa Scott has given us an imaginative yet believable universe with sympathetic multi-dimensional characters. You go girl!